By Karen Warnick –
Recent news articles have come out everywhere about the fact that Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has been covering up the amount of damage and radiation spewing out of the Fukushima nuclear power plant that was all but destroyed in the March 2011 earthquake and resulting tsunami.
[…]
Chernobyl is still a no-enter zone 27 years later, and will stay that way for who knows how long. The facts about the underestimation of the amount of radiation and deaths that have occurred since then have also been recently exposed, though very quietly.
We also have an untold number of nuclear waste dump sites dotting this planet, with no guarantee that they aren’t leaking or could end up being extremely dangerous to our planet’s health.
Nuclear expert Helen Caldicott has said: “As a physician, I contend that nuclear technology threatens life on our planet with extinction. If the present trends continue, the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink will soon be contaminated with enough radioactive pollutants to pose a potential health hazard for greater than any plague humanity has ever experienced.”
So why is it being covered up? Why is Japan getting away with lying about the extent of the damage and danger when people, animals and ocean life are turning up with cancer, sores and radiation poisoning? Why are we allowing them to get away with it? Why aren’t the nations of the world demanding that more be done and that there is full disclosure?

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The Atomic Age is an ongoing project that aims to cultivate critical and reflective intervention regarding nuclear power and weapons. We provide daily news updates on the issues of nuclear energy and weapons, primarily though not exclusively in English and Japanese via RSS, Twitter, and Facebook. If you would like to receive updates in English only, subscribe to this RSS.

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The artwork in the header, titled "JAPAN:Nuclear Power Plant," is copyright artist Tomiyama Taeko.

The photograph in the sidebar, of a nuclear power plant in Byron, Illinois, is copyright photographer Joseph Pobereskin (http://pobereskin.com/)

This website was designed by the Center for East Asian Studies, the University of Chicago, and is administered by Masaki Matsumoto, Graduate Student in the Masters of Arts Program for the Social Sciences, the University of Chicago.

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If you have any questions, please contact the Center for East Asian Studies, the University of Chicago at 773-702-2715 or japanatchicago@uchicago.edu.